• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Lawrence Dennis, The Coming of American Fascism
 
q
 
Chapter 1 
q
 
Chapter 2 
q
 
Resume on Credit 
q
 
Chapter 4 
q
 
Chapter 5 
q
 
Debt Reduction 
q
 
Chapter 7 
q
 
Restore flexibility 
q
 
Chapter 9 
q
 
Chapter 10 
q
 
Chapter 11 
q
 
Economic necessity 
q
 
Chapter 13 
q
 
Chapter 14 
q
 
Enlarging the Market 
q
 
Chapter 16 
q
 
Chapter 17 
q
 
Chapter 18 
q
 
Chapter 19 
q
 
Chapter 20 
q
 
Chapter 21 
q
 
Chapter 22 
q
 
Chapter 23 
Lawrence Dennis 
The Coming American Fascism
Harper & Brothers Publishers1936
 
We have solved the problem of production,now we have to solve the problem of distribution 
.—Benito Mussolini
http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/dennis/fascism_index.html5.4.2006 8:58:42
 
Lawrence Dennis, The Coming of American Fascism, Ch 1
Lawrence Dennis
The Coming of American Fascism 
 
CHAPTER I 
THE CRISIS OF A SYSTEM : IT WON'T WORKEvery social situation has an unlimited number of aspects. Unworkability of the existingsystem is the particular aspect of the present social situation in the United States which,to the fascist way of thinking, seems most challenging to thoughtful analysis andimmediate action. It is the unworkability of a given social system in a changed set of conditions which is most responsible for revolutionary social change. Feudalism, forinstance, gave way to modern capitalism, not because any number of the people at anygiven moment decided that they would prefer a new social order, but because a series of discoveries of new lands and inventions of new machines and techniques created newconditions, among them the rise of a new business class, in which the feudal systemcould not work. This is not to state a thesis of rigid economic determinism or anexclusively materialistic interpretation of history. It is to recognize that changes in thingsact on preferences as well as changes in preferences on things.It seems a fairly sound generalization to say that no social group, after debating the meritsof the existing order versus those of a possible successor, proceeded to scrap the old andadopt the new as long as the old system was maintaining a semblance of order orworking. Indeed, it is a part of the process of maintaining order and making a given socialsystem work to see to it that the people like what they have. In measure as defenders of asystem deem it necessary to argue with the people in favor of the preservation of the oldsystem, they really admit and advertise its doom. There is no doubt but that thecontinuous attacks on fascism and defenses of the present system featured by powerfulpublications like the
Saturday Evening Post 
, and in the public utterances of influentialcitizens like Mr. Hoover, do more to advertise and further fascism than almost any otherfactor calling fascism to the attention of the American people. A social system is eitheron the offensive, or it is doomed.There is little point to drawing conservative inferences from the fact that the people areattached to their Constitution and nine elderly exponents of it, to their king and his noblesor to the Druid priests and their human sacrifices. The people are always attached- totheir leaders; institutions and folk customs, no matter how absurd or barbarous theselatter may appear from other points of view. If and when, under changed conditions, theold system proves unworkable, or fails adequately to meet its imperatives, theundermining and upsetting of it are always directed by a small minority of thediscontented or frustrated elite who may be divided into several groups but who, in some
http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/dennis/fascism_01.html (1 of 9)5.4.2006 8:58:49
 
Lawrence Dennis, The Coming of American Fascism, Ch 1
one minority group, gradually roll up enough mass following to achieve their ends. Thedefenders of the old system have to learn that the only good argument for the old systemis to make it work. And this means, among other things, taking care of those elite whootherwise become discontented and ultimately revolutionary.The usual defense of the system made today by its supposed friends, however, consistsmainly in apologies for the system's unworkability and in appeals for loyal support nomatter how it works. There is a typically liberal naiveté in appealing to Y's reason to beloyal to a system which still suits X, but which is not working so well for Y. That kind of loyalty is not born of reason but habit, early conditioning and wholly unreasonedimpulses. One of the earliest proofs of the unworkability of a system, after its failure tocare for the elite, is its failure to maintain the suitable mass conditioning for the system'ssurvival. But of this we shall have more to say under another heading.In the fascist view of the situation, the unworkability of the present system is the startingpoint in social thought and action. It is also the most vulnerable point for attack—and thefascists are attackers. Taking this particular view of the system's crisis or slow declinedoes not mean that a fascist-minded person sees nothing else in the situation butmechanical defects or that he minimizes other aspects of the situation. That the injusticesof the present social situation, in which millions suffer hunger and privation whileproductive instruments, like human hands, land, and factories, remain in enforcedidleness, are a crying shame, the fascist fully recognizes. That Father Coughlin and hisLeague for Social Justice should emphasize this phase of the situation and demand itscorrection is both humane and helpful. But, if an individual or a group sets about thecorrection of these injustices, the first order of problems encountered will be found to liesquarely in the fields of social mechanics or government and management in the broadestsense of these terms.These problems are matters of getting things done rather than of formulating moral judgments. It is well to say what ought and what ought not to be, but satisfying any givenmoral or ethical imperative about social conditions is largely a matter of using thecoercive force of government and the resources of technical management of the socialand material factors determining social conditions. In other words, while the impulse toget something done may spring from wishing to have it done, getting it done is notexclusively a matter of imagining or wishing it done.The voice of the prophet, which is the voice of conscience denouncing sin and extollingrighteousness-word these phenomena as you will and let them take the personal andinstitutional forms and expressions they will in different ages and cultures—has been amoral force in every civilization. But, after conscience or the prophet has denounced acondition and demanded its correction in the name of some metaphysical value or social
http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/dennis/fascism_01.html (2 of 9)5.4.2006 8:58:49
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...